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another applied project idea which is loosely connected to the “data vessels” theme:

a weather station with three of these old-school rain gauges or “pluviometers”

which show the amount of rainfall for the next three days and three metal panels which let you feel the temperature of the next three days.

but instead of getting this info from sensors on the balcony this device receives its information from any weather rss feed of any distant place. the remote and future data is rendered physically and becomes a haptic experience, a part of the remote physicality is transported to your place.

this is how the “pouring” interaction could work:

• if a sending process is started is determined by an optical signal (IR-interface)
• sending or receiving mode is determined by the inclination of each vessel
• if there is inclination, but no optical contact between the vessels’ openings, no transmission takes place.

the transmission is made over a bluetooth or other wireless interface for faster and more reliable transfer.

this function could also be easily integrated in any mobile device and would serve well when sharing vCards (office) or ringtones (schoolyard) or whatever comes up. the vessels, once they are miniaturized, would take the place of USB-memory-sticks. No crawling under the desk anymore…

the average human brain capacity is said to be 3 terabytes of data. for the overflowing barrel this would be a good measure. everytime when your head was full if it was sensitive to wireless packets, the barrel gives its “enough” signal. some babyphones are transmitting in the same frequency band as wireless LAN, so it would be easy to build a jamming transmitter.
here’s a rough sketch:

from the outside one would just notice a glow, but on the inside, the “filling level” of data can be seen.
an accelerometer would sense if one would “empty” the casket and switch off the jamming transmitter…

some more project ideas that are related to ad-hoc-networking and data everywhere:

• glasses or mugs that contain data and which enable you to “pour” data from one vessel into another (could also work with moblie devices, like a data transfer gesture) see also what ken hinckley did.
• a small barrel that filters data packets from invisible wireless networks until it is “full” and no traffic is possible anymore, until it is emptied (i am still electrified by the thought of “pouring”data or making data somehow tangible or noticeable in the physical world)